One of the enormous raptors of the desert has been circling above them for days, smaller carrion birds like vultures floating in its wake. Yang ducks back into the truck again as the shadow sweeps over her.
The creature isn't dropping low enough to attack them, which means it's too high up to attack it. Yang fired a blank cartridge into the air, but didn't even startle it. The bird has stalked people before, and it's smart enough to remember its successful strategies. It'll stay in the air for weeks or months, waiting for them to let their guard down.
Yang is itching for a proper fight. When something upsets her, she punches it out, and everything Blake has told them is upsetting so far. They could use some fresh meat, too. Pyrrha says baiting the bird down to kill it is too risky, and when it gets desperate it'll approach on its own, but the wait is interminable.
Yang does want to see Blake fight, some time soon. She wants to see just what their new teammate is capable of. When the bird gets closer, they might have a chance to watch her in action.
Nora struggles out from underneath the truck, face covered in motor oil.
"The gears are completely worn out," she says. "We don't have any spares, or the raw materials for –" she trails off as the bird's shadow covers them, peering up at the sky before grinning.
"Those things have tough bones, right?"
"I don't know if that's a great idea," Yang says, trying to hide her smile. Nora thinks the same way as she does about fights, which is a source of Pyrrha's eternal frustration with her team.
"Come on, get a shotgun and let's go," Nora insists, scrambling up the side of the truck. "I'll be bait, then you can shoot it. Easy."
Yang grabs the shotgun from its place above the windshield. It's kept loaded, so they're always ready for a confrontation. She rushes out to see the raptor already swooping lower.
…
"What were you thinking?" Pyrrha demands.
Nora shrugs guiltily.
"The bones might work to build new gears for the truck, since the old ones are beyond saving, so we decided to kill it."
"You could have died!" Pyrrha turns to Yang, who is tugging off her torn jacket and wincing. "You know how risky that was, and for what, just gears?" Her anger is already falling away, replaced with worry. "I can't be the only one trying to keep us all from dying. Please, just try to work with me."
Yang nods. The cuts across her chest are bleeding, soaking through her shirt, but look relatively superficial. If Blake disinfects them and sews them up they'll heal well. Blake continues rummaging through the supplies in the back of the truck, half-listening to their conversation.
"I know," Yang says. "I just don't like the wait, with the bird above us for days, and when Nora said to take down the bird I just – didn't think."
"I'm sorry, I'll think through my plans next time. But did you see how cool that fight was? Yang jumped into its mouth!" Nora exclaims.
Pyrrha sighs.
"I know you mean well, but we just can't lose another person, not after half the team disappeared."
"I know, I know, be safe." Nora rustles through her clothing for a moment. "But I brought you this, from the bird."
"It's a feather," Pyrrha says, looking unimpressed.
"It's a cool feather."
Pyrrha smiles and takes the feather, which is longer than Blake's forearm and razor-sharp, squeezing Nora's hand. Nora brushes a lock of hair out of Pyrrha's face, and Yang laughs. They're all close, comfortably so. Blake misses her own. She misses Ilia, who said that Blake was more important to her than the cause, although quietly, checking over her shoulder each time. Here, Blake is a medic, not a person.
Survival is paramount here, not comfort, and they offer her a chance at survival, she reminds herself. Blake patches up Yang's chest and Nora's shoulders, helps Pyrrha set up evaporation traps to get as much water out of the creature's blood as they can, fights to be useful because to be useful is to survive for a few days more.
…
Jaune stands in front of the cell camera to block its view of the rest of the cell. Ruby begins tapping at the wall, searching for a slightly different sound that means a gap beyond. There are none on the walls, and she moves to the floor, then the ceiling.
"Nothing," she says. "Looks like the door is still our best shot."
…
The creatures are trying to escape, Winter notes. They're remarkably intelligent about the process, having one person block the view of the room by standing in front of the camera. It doesn't stop the audio transmissions, but even displaying the intelligence to know the purpose of the camera is remarkable. Winter makes note of their actions in a file that's quickly filling up with evidence that the creatures are far more intelligent than previously assumed.
If the creatures understand the purpose of the camera, it means they must have a remarkable amount of technology, or at least a strong memory of technology from before the war. Most likely the second option. The female escaped, but that was likely just an error on the part of one of the crew, rather than an individual born in a wasteland somehow knowing how to pick locks.
Technology or not, the creatures are disturbingly human. They displayed joy when reunited and misery when apart. Of course, herding instinct is far from uniquely human, and is no reason to be sentimental about test subjects.
The subjects are insistent that there are others in the desert. The female mentioned a sister, which it evidently cares for immensely. Again, a disturbingly humanoid pattern of familial bonding, but no indication that these creatures are anything like human. They are, after all, the distant descendants of the poor, the great mass of lower beings unfit for any task requiring true intelligence.